Lineups that were used (by good teams) that seem ridiculous in retrospect

[Rigby.]

Cavs had a lineup of Jr-Shump-(Bron)-James Jones-Mozgov for periods

 

[Thegospel]

Greg Foster wanted all the smoke with Young Shaq.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

That Blazers team is a modern day team. They played closer to the style we play minus the three pointers. Clyde was a top 10 player, with a deep ass team and very experienced.

They were a team that relied heavily on the fast break, their half-court offense was often stagnant, especially in clutch situations. The Bulls ripped into them for this. When the offense stagnated they had no one to stretch the floor except maybe Porter (and he was only good for 1-2 threes/game), no real plays to run, no go-to guy inside...I don't see how you could call them a great team.

If you tried to run a low-IQ offence with no inside threat and no three-point shooters, and you had no interior defense to stop your opponent on the other end, you would get destroyed in today's game.

Pippen: "You want to force them to make decisions. They're a very athletic team, but when you play against a good, smart team like us, you have to be a smart team, too. No offense to Portland, but we're a much smarter team."

Jordan: "They have more athletic ability than we do, but to win, you have to play together as a team -- and you have to play smart."

Phil Jackson's scouting report on the Blazers: "They will self-destruct if we show them how."

Trail Blazers Can't Shake Reputation

OK, the Trail Blazers had shortcomings.

Three of them--Clyde Drexler, Jerome Kersey and Cliff Robinson--considered themselves outside shooters despite evidence to the contrary. At many key moments, opponents were heartened to see one of them launching a shot from the cheap seats with 16 seconds left on the 24-second clock.
This was deemed youthful excess--until last season, when the Trail Blazers compiled the NBA's best record but fell to the Lakers in the Western finals.

The Lakers were aces at playing the Trail Blazers. They took away the fast break and made Portland make decisions. Suddenly the Trail Blazers were no longer heirs-apparent, admired for their boundless talent, but disappointments who obviously had something holding them back.

Thus the advent of dumb-Blazer lore.

Chicago's Scottie Pippen came right out and talked about it, saying the Trail Blazers have talent superior to the Bulls' but aren't as smart.

On top of that, they didn't have any rim protector. Duckworth was awful at D and Buck Williams was strong one-on-one but did little on help defense. No one in the starting lineup averaged even 1 block a game.

And deep? In 1990 they only had 6 guys who played even 15 minutes/game, the 7th man was Danny Young and the 8th was Wayne Cooper. In 1992 they were up to 7 guys playing 15 minutes with the addition of Ainge, but after that was Mark Bryant, Wayne Cooper, and Ennis Whatley. They were not very deep.

 

[Bigblackted4]

They were a team that relied heavily on the fast break, their half-court offense was often stagnant, especially in clutch situations. The Bulls ripped into them for this. When the offense stagnated they had no one to stretch the floor except maybe Porter (and he was only good for 1-2 threes/game), no real plays to run, no go-to guy inside...I don't see how you could call them a great team.

If you tried to run a low-IQ offence with no inside threat and no three-point shooters, and you had no interior defense to stop your opponent on the other end, you would get destroyed in today's game.

Pippen: "You want to force them to make decisions. They're a very athletic team, but when you play against a good, smart team like us, you have to be a smart team, too. No offense to Portland, but we're a much smarter team."

Jordan: "They have more athletic ability than we do, but to win, you have to play together as a team -- and you have to play smart."

Phil Jackson's scouting report on the Blazers: "They will self-destruct if we show them how."

Trail Blazers Can't Shake Reputation



On top of that, they didn't have any rim protector. Duckworth was awful at D and Buck Williams was strong one-on-one but did little on help defense. No one in the starting lineup averaged even 1 block a game.

And deep? In 1990 they only had 6 guys who played even 15 minutes/game, the 7th man was Danny Young and the 8th was Wayne Cooper. In 1992 they were up to 7 guys playing 15 minutes with the addition of Ainge, but after that was Mark Bryant, Wayne Cooper, and Ennis Whatley. They were not very deep.

Those 7 players were very good and had all been to a finals before. They all averaged double figures in the regular season. Also that bulls team is probably a top 10 team of all time with the perfect players to beat that team of course it was easy for them.

 

[Mantis Toboggan M.D.]

Less than a decade ago Phoenix came within 2 games of the finals while regularly playing Channing Frye and Amare Stoudemire at the same time. The lack of defense in their front court . Nash at the point too . To elaborate on the 2010-11 heat, they liked to close games with Haslem and Miller around the big 3. Literally only 1 guy who had to be guarded from deep, yet they posted a fantastic +/- for the eastern finals just 7 years ago. Try this one. Just 9 years ago Orlando managed to finish with the best defense in the league with the following guys starting

PG: Jameer Nelson/Raefor Alston
SG: Courtney Lee
SF: Hedo Turkoglu
PF: Rashard Lewis

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Those 7 players were very good and had all been to a finals before. They all averaged double figures in the regular season. Also that bulls team is probably a top 10 team of all time with the perfect players to beat that team of course it was easy for them.

I'm still waiting for you to name one modern skill they had on offense. Their starting lineup was not modern in any way, shape, or form. The most interesting thing they did was occasionally pull Buck and Duck for Ainge and Cliff and run sort of a small-ballish five that could all shoot, but it still didn't work because only two of the five shot threes with any efficiency and none of them had a real knock-down midrange game.

Again, no rim protector, no inside scorer, no offensive scheme, and no three-point shooters. Went 10-52 from threes in a six-game Finals and no one in the front court managed more than 4 blocks. I'm going to keep repeating that until you offer any sort of counter at all.

 

[Sweet Pea]

The 91 Rockets went 18-10 with a lineup of

C: Otis Thorpe
PF: Larry Smith
SF: Buck Johnson
SG: Vernon Maxwell
PG: Kenny Smith

That’s definitely not happening in today’s game.

 

[GoddamnyamanProf]

This thread will be revisited when the Fakers put out a lineup of

Ball
Caldwell-Pope
Stephenson
Kuzmam
James

I'm looking forward to the lineup of

Rondo
Lonzo
Lance
Kuz
Bron

The passing

 

[Professor Emeritus]

I'm looking forward to the lineup of

Rondo
Lonzo
Lance
Kuz
Bron

The passing

The shooting.

All three of those guards are 30% career shooters from three. Play 3 guards at the same time and have Rondo be the best shooter among them brehs.

 

[Sweet Pea]

The 2000 Lakers when Kobe was injured went 16-3 with a lineup of Shaq, 36 year old AC Green, 37 year old Ron Harper, Glen Rice, and Fisher. That lineup definitely isn’t getting put on the floor today let alone being as successful as it was.

 

[GoddamnyamanProf]

The shooting.

All three of those guards are 30% career shooters from three. Play 3 guards at the same time and have Rondo be the best shooter among them brehs.

Kuz and Bron will play stretch 4 and stretch 5, taking the outside shots and creating maximum space for 5 playmakers to handle the ball and confuse defenses with motion offense, sharp cuts and dazzling dishes

 

[Bigblackted4]

I'm still waiting for you to name one modern skill they had on offense. Their starting lineup was not modern in any way, shape, or form. The most interesting thing they did was occasionally pull Buck and Duck for Ainge and Cliff and run sort of a small-ballish five that could all shoot, but it still didn't work because only two of the five shot threes with any efficiency and none of them had a real knock-down midrange game.

Again, no rim protector, no inside scorer, no offensive scheme, and no three-point shooters. Went 10-52 from threes in a six-game Finals and no one in the front court managed more than 4 blocks. I'm going to keep repeating that until you offer any sort of counter at all.

The pace at which they played was closer to modern, the wing heavy scoring with a point guard that can score and pass. They didn’t have a post player but got a lot of shots at the basket because if they style. Rick Adelman was the coach who was an invator.

 

[ISO]

The 2000 Lakers when Kobe was injured went 16-3 with a lineup of Shaq, 36 year old AC Green, 37 year old Ron Harper, Glen Rice, and Fisher. That lineup definitely isn’t getting put on the floor today let alone being as successful as it was.

W.O.A.T. era

 

[Professor Emeritus]

The 2000 Lakers when Kobe was injured went 16-3 with a lineup of Shaq, 36 year old AC Green, 37 year old Ron Harper, Glen Rice, and Fisher. That lineup definitely isn’t getting put on the floor today let alone being as successful as it was.

Holy crap, I remembered the stats about the Lakers winning without Kobe but I hadn't remembered it was with a lineup like that.

The pace at which they played was closer to modern, the wing heavy scoring with a point guard that can score and pass. They didn’t have a post player but got a lot of shots at the basket because if they style. Rick Adelman was the coach who was an invator.

The pace they played was "close to modern" because they ran a ton of fast breaks on lackadaisical defense and took ill-advised shots early in the clock. We already covered both of those. How would either of those traits help them today?

And they got buckets close to the basket because they played man defenses, where Duckworth could pull his man out to midrange and Drexler/Kersey could drive on one-on-one matchups. Against today's zone defenses, how are they going to get close to the basket when they can't spread the floor past 15-18 feet?

 

[Mantis Toboggan M.D.]

Holy crap, I remembered the stats about the Lakers winning without Kobe but I hadn't remembered it was with a lineup like that.





The pace they played was "close to modern" because they ran a ton of fast breaks on lackadaisical defense and took ill-advised shots early in the clock. We already covered both of those. How would either of those traits help them today?

And they got buckets close to the basket because they played man defenses, where Duckworth could pull his man out to midrange and Drexler/Kersey could drive on one-on-one matchups. Against today's zone defenses, how are they going to get close to the basket when they can't spread the floor past 15-18 feet?

This second part is why it’s more or less pointless to compare teams of the last decade to ones from more than 8-10 years ago. Floor spacing wasn’t really much of a priority for offenses to establish since the rules essentially mandated that everyone spaces the floor even if they aren’t a threat to hit anything outside the paint. The rule changes that allowed the zone forced a complete overhaul to offensive strategy.